Half of classrooms at Burlington school lack windows

Parents want natural light at Burlington school where half of classrooms have no windows

Dec. 22, 2013

One of the windowless classrooms at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington is now lit primarily with conical solar tubes that filter natural daylight into the room, despite looking like traditional fluorescent fixtures. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

Fifth-grade student Violet Bluestein sits in her windowless classroom at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington on Thursday. Bluestein has been without windows for five of her six years at Champlain School. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS

Fifth-grade teacher Aran Nulty works with her students in a windowless classroom at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington on Thursday. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS

Fifth grade student Violet Bluestein looks up at the fluorescent lights in her windowless classroom while she and her classmates talk about the pros and cons of having windows in their learning environment at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington on Thursday. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS

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There’s no reason to worry that 10-year-old Violet Bluestein will look out the window of her fifth-grade classroom and become distracted.

That’s because there isn’t a window. There wasn’t one in her classroom last year, or the year before. In five of Violet’s six years at Champlain School in Burlington’s South End, starting with kindergarten, she has spent her days in windowless classrooms.

Nor is she alone. About half of the classrooms at the public elementary school are window-free, and some 150 students at the school are assigned to those rooms. Violet’s teacher Aran Nulty sums up the problem with her classroom:

“It’s a little bit like being in a box.”

Now parents are asking the School Board for renovations that would bring windows and natural light into classrooms. They argue the light of the sun will improve the well-being of their children and their potential to learn.

“There’s something about a learning environment where you’re basically staring at walls and fluorescent light all day that is uninspiring,” said Adam Bluestein, Violet’s father. “So a bunch of us decided to see what, if anything, we can do to make this a priority for the district to really just agree that natural light in classrooms is a guarantee.”

The problem goes beyond aesthetics, Bluestein said. He and other parents point to studies that suggest natural light can improve academic success and reduce behavioral problems.

One of the best known studies on the topic was published in 1999. It found that natural light improved student performance, as measured on standardized tests, in a study of 21,000 elementary-school students in California, Colorado and Washington state.

In the Capistrano school district in Orange County, Calif., students with the most natural light in their classrooms progressed 20 percent faster in math and 26 percent faster in reading in one year than students with the least natural light. In Seattle and in Fort Collins, Colo., students with the most natural light scored 7-15 percent higher on year-end tests than those with the least natural light.

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The study examined a side question about the effect of fresh air. The conclusion: It’s good. Students in classrooms where the windows open performed slightly better (7-8 percent) than students in classrooms with fixed or sealed windows.

The studies controlled for student demographics such as income and for participation in special-education programs.

Let there be light?

Burlington owns 11 school buildings, counting two that are used for preschool or alternative school programs. The structures date from 1900 to the early 1970s. The buildings vary in architectural style and in the amount of natural light that finds its way inside.

For much of public education’s history, natural light was a necessity so students could see to read their primers and learn their letters. Even after the arrival of gas and electric lights, schools often were built with ample windows to add character and symmetry to a building’s facade.

Burlington’s Edmunds school complex on Main Street is an example of this approach. The Renaissance Revival buildings, the older of which dates to 1900, have scores of oversized windows along with smaller, decorative glass.

Edmunds Elementary and Middle School have abundant natural light, perhaps more than any of the other schools in the district, although the old Taft School building on South Williams Street also boasts sizable windows.

Champlain School on Pine Street and the Ira Allen building on Colchester Avenue, which houses a preschool and central office staff, probably have the smallest amount of window space in the district, said Joel FitzGerald, co-director of facilities for Burlington Schools.

Champlain was built in 1958 as ideas about school architecture were changing. School buildings with high ceilings, banks of windows and tall frames were becoming passé. Lower-slung buildings with fewer windows reflected the new taste for sleek, modern structures unconcerned about bringing the outdoors inside.

Energy efficiency also was a factor in the shrinking of school windows, as many districts struggled to maintain drafty, wavy glass in their old buildings. Burlington confronted this problem and resorted to a handyman-special solution.

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Faced with seeping heat and a window reglazing project of mammoth proportions at the Edmunds complex, the district in the early 1980s boarded over about 40 percent of the windows. The boards stayed up for years until a multimillion-dollar window replacement project was approved by voters. The result conforms with historic preservation codes and energy conservation guidelines, but came with a large price tag.

When students at Champlain graduate up to middle school at Edmunds, they often notice there is more light, parents and students say.

“All my friends ... they said that they love the huge windows,” fifth-grader Violet Bluestein said.

Meanwhile, her father and others are hoping to move forward on a window project at Champlain.

“It’s frustrating in that it’s a great school, we love the school, we love the teachers, but it’s a product of really just a different architectural sensibility and a different time when people thought differently about what mattered to the learning environment,” Adam Bluestein said. “It’s sort of bunker-like.”

Watching the rain

There’s plenty of agreement that Champlain needs windows in all classrooms. Principal Leslie Colomb, many teachers and some School Board members support the idea. So does FitzGerald, the district co-director of facilities.

“We get it,” he said. “And when the budget supports it, we are going to address that.”

But competition for money is strong. So is pressure to stay within the budget. In recent years, the school district repeatedly has logged deficits despite spending increases well over the state average.

The financial strains come as the district tackles an ambitious, multimillion-dollar school renovation campaign. Some of the work has increased natural light in classrooms in other parts of the city.

Makeovers at schools including the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes, C.P. Smith Elementary and J.J. Flynn put windows in places where there were none and switched out stained plexiglass windows with natural glass that lets in more light. Also installed: Energy-efficient lighting that dims as natural light increases.

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So much more light is coming into city schools that the district has made a companion investment.

“We’ve had to really increase our budgets in shades,” FitzGerald said. “With natural lighting comes an increase in sun, and there are times in the classroom when you need it to be dark.”

Champlain is not slated for a major makeover anytime soon, but it is near the front of the line for some smaller fixes. The district’s repair list includes $30,000 to replace some of the plexiglass windows at Champlain and $220,000 for LED lighting. Replacement of a fire alarm system recently cost $200,000, and the school parking lot is earmarked for a $300,000 fix.

Champlain parents including Nina Chill would like the pending window and lighting work to be integrated into a larger plan to add new windows to the school.

“What we’re concerned about is that money is spent to make these kinds of improvements to the school without regard to the fact that there’s no natural light in the school.”

FitzGerald said the improvements will be a good foundation for work down the line.

Many of the classrooms without windows are clustered in the center of the school and have walls onto corridors, not the building exterior. Adding windows likely would require tearing down walls and reconfiguring space, making it an expensive project.

In the meantime, tubular skylights have been installed in the ceilings of some classrooms at Champlain to help address the problem — but they don’t allow children to see outside.

Back in Violet Bluestein’s classroom, her teacher has warmed up the space with lamps, illustrations, maps and charts about classroom rules and topics under study.

Still, it’s disorienting to be unable to see what’s happening outside, teacher Aran Nulty said. One day this year, a powerful rainstorm drummed against the school roof, triggering an impulse among students to watch the deluge.

“They were like, ‘Miss Nulty, can we go and see it?’” the teacher recalled.

She allowed them to file out to a window in the hallway and take in the show, if only for a few minutes. “I had them three at a time go to the window and take a peek at the rain and come back.”